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For a brief moment three years ago Palm topped the smartphone tree with the Treo 650, but since then the company has taken its foot so far off the gas it’s hurtling backwards down a hill. Windows, Symbian and BlackBerry rivals have lapped Palm with turbo-charged multimedia smarties and even last year’s Treo 500V couldn’t muster a George Foreman style comeback.
Rather than hit back with another all-singing smartphone Palm’s latest model, the Centro, is going for the younger, budget market. But can a phone with no 3G or Wi-Fi and a frankly prehistoric 1.3MP camera win a new legion of fans?
Compact and cramped
The Centro’s design will certainly be familiar to the old crowd. Palm has essentially squeezed the Treo 500V into a more bijou form, making it highly pocketable considering it harbours a full QWERTY. Unfortunately, the new compact look has cramped the keyboard’s style and, while it’s not totally unworkable, it’s not great for accurate speed typing.
After flirting with the Windows Mobile dark side on the Treo 500V, Palm has rightly returned to its own OS. It remains incredibly user-friendly and along with a five-way navigation pad, you’re also afforded a stylus-driven touch-screen for the more fiddly operations.
Easy email
Built-in VersaMail software takes the faff out of setting up your personal email account and synchronisation with your Outlook is straightforward via the bundled PC Palm Desktop software. The Centro’s threaded text-messages conversation is also a neat touch.
With no 3G or Wi-Fi web speeds are reliant on plucky but languid EDGE technology. The Blazer browser prunes full fat pages to fit the display and improve load times, although the wait will still have you grinding your teeth in frustration.
Multimedia caveman
Both the music player and camera are scarily bare-boned and the fixed-focus 1.3MP camera is bereft of any effects or flash to adapt to low-level lighting. Similarly, the Pocket Tunes music player has no equaliser to beef up its audio and only a mono headset is supplied. Really, not including stereo earphones is a poor show.
Sadly, the Centro is not a return to former glories for Palm and on this evidence it’s still falling way short of today’s high smartphone standards. It’s not all doom and gloom, because the Centro is an efficient emailer with strong PIM functionality and a reasonable price tag. But despite this there are many better multimedia smarties worthy of your attention.
Tech Specs
- Bluetooth
- Yes
- Dedicated MP3 player software
- Yes
- Dimensions
- 107x53.5x18.6mm
- FM radio
- Yes
- Main camera resolution
- 1.3 Megapixel
- Memory card slots
- Yes
- Memory card type
- Micro SD
- Operating system
- Palm 5.4.9 OS
- Optical zoom rating
- No
- Quad band
- Yes
- Screen resolution
- 320x320px
- Standby time
- 4 hours
- Storage
- 64MB internal memory
- Supported music formats
- MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA
- Weight
- 124g
- Wi-Fi
- No
- Xenon flash
- No
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Comments
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1 year ago
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Tolkein
4 years ago
I have moved from my trusty warhorse of a Treo 600 to the Palm Centro about 2 months ago and so far am overall pleased-ish. I confess that I do not appreciate the intricate differences between Symbian, OS and windows based platforms, etc. but I was looking for was something that does what it's supposed to reliably and efficiently and with minimal hassle! My impressions regarding the Centro so far: 1) The Palm Centro is obviously smaller and more compact. The screen is smaller, but you'll soon not notice. The keyboard is definitely a tighter fit and my mis-spell rate has definitely gone up! So though size-wise it's pleasing (compared to my old Treo 600) maybe they've overdone it with the keyboard. Also, the buttons have a rubbery feel and not as tactilely pleasing as the 600s. 2) My biggest moan is that you can feel the battery cover play slightly when you hold the Centro in your hand...very very irritating!! 3) The synchronisation via my laptop was painless. Literally took a total of 2 minutes to install the Centro's software, configure and sync all my old contacts, calendar, notes, and to do items. However, not SMSs! Overall very very slick, and I moved over to using my new Centro immediately. 4) Googlemaps was a major attraction, but I haven't been able to figure out how to browse Googlemaps without connecting to the internet. Suggestions anyone? 5) The actually software is no different from Treo's and whereas there are no new (worthwhile??) gizmos, I am using programmes that intimately familiar with! 6) I am disappointed that the box doesn't include a slipcase! 7) The stylus is absolutely crap! It is very flimsy and bendy, small and too thin. Don't get me wrong, it is still functional and does what it's supposed to, but just feels feeble and limp and cheap! And I can't find an alternative stylus of better material that will fit in the slot. Hey Palm guys, that's an accessory that I will buy! Surprisingly, everyone else seems to gloss over how crap the stylus is!? 8) Battery life is fine, and actually can charge via USB (i.e. when hooked up for charging) so I only really charge about once a week or so. 9) Camera is crap. Usable, but crap. Enough said. The competition; i.e. the Blackberry, Nokia E71, the MDA, HTC, iPhone, Storm, X1, SPV, XDA etc, undoubtedly outclass the Centro. However, in my opinion unless you are after a specific feature like email, or a good quality camera, then the Palm Centro is definitely a contender as an all-rounder. It has the advantage of having a qwerty keyboard (which beats touchscreen tap-typing any day) as well as a touch screen! Despite all my moans, I wouldn't change to any of the above phones. Overall, Palm have got a good system: fast, responsive, and reliable, and so I would definitely recommend the Treo/Palm family!